Calen Spindler's Blog of Nonsense

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More Shit That’s Pretty Cool!

I feel like lately my posts sound like a first grader coming home from school hyperventilating to their parent about everything that happened that day.

“And then this happened and this happened and then THIS happened!”

But a lot has happened already this year and I’m still trying to organize and process it, and I’m bringing you all along on the ride because who likes to go on road trips alone right? I mean, it’s a lot easier to siphon gas from people’s cars when you have a lookout.

That said, I’ve mentioned in passing that I have some heart issues.

Over the past twenty years I’ve been to half a dozen cardiologists, tried a number of medications and had surgery twice. It seemed like the last surgery I had in 2010 had done the trick until about June of last year when I started to really feel like shit again. I didn’t want to have another surgery I had to go down the medication experimentation route–and let me tell you how much fun this was because I’m one of those people where if there’s a 1% chance of a bizarre side effect I will be that 1%.

Over the year I ended up trying so many different meds that I was seriously losing track of which one I currently taking. In April the doctor decided to think outside the box and prescribed me two new meds. The first thing that I noticed when I picked up the meds from the pharmacy was that the one bottle was a lot larger than usual. I unscrewed the cap and made a face at the contents.

“Holy shit these things are huge! Are you sure they’re meant for humans and not for horses?” I asked him.

“That’s them,” he replied without looking up.

“Well there should a Linda Lovelace instructional video that comes with them because I have no idea how I’m supposed to get these down my gullet.”

The eighty-year-old pharmacist finally gave me his attention and gave me a dirty look. That was good enough for me so I grabbed my bag of horse pills and left.

I took the pills as soon as I got home–which was not the best idea since I was going to fall asleep soon but I’m impatient like that.

And this is going to sound cliched but when I woke up the next morning I already felt like a different person.

Seriously it was like this:

Over the next three months I continued to feel better but it wasn’t until I happened to see a recent picture of me next to a picture from a few months ago in a Facebook album that it I realized just how shitty I had felt and how shitty I looked this past year.

I’m not completely fixed–I still get tired and I still have the occasional arrhythmia–but I’m feeling so much better and most importantly I’m writing a lot more efficiently since I’m not fighting to stay awake all the time. That right there is worth choking down some horse pills every morning.

Happy to hear you’re feeling better! If you’ve ever seen one of those terrible weight loss ads on the Internet, then for the before picture you need to look really sad, and slump your shoulders, and pooch out your stomach like life is just miserable. Then in the after picture you need to be smiling and standing tall and looking vibrant, like you’ve just conquered the world. Confidence and happiness is half of the success story!

Since I’ve been feeling better I’ve been going to the gym more and I decided to track my progress in photos (for myself–I’m not traumatizing anybody with that shit) and I purpose smiled obnoxiously in the “before” pic because of that.

I usually don’t realize I felt crappy until I feel better and have a frame of comparison. I think you look lovely even when you feel crappy but I might be biased because you are my sweet Kat! Keep feeling good darling!

When I was a kid “Valley of the Dolls” was on TV. Daring for its time, so we all watched it. In one scene Patty Duke is taking pills and she tosses her head back when swallowing them. I tried it and it made swallowing pills many, many times easier. I don’t even think about how many pills or what size they are when I take pills now, and others I’ve told this have been surprised by how big a difference it makes. It’s funny that no one in health care ever teaches people this.

So glad you’re feeling better. And you’re looking great, too. Hope you continue to feel better. I have family and friends that have heart problems and I’m always so worried when they get bad news from their doctors and have to undergo new treatments or another procedure.